Saxon architecture

“ Such evidence is not of course in itself sufficient to fix a building as undoubtedly belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period, but as it generally occurs along with features more or less markedly distinct from the earliest Romanesque buildings to which an authentic date is assigned, it is a mere disputing about terms to question the existence of many well known examples in England of a style of ecclesiastical building popularly known as Saxon architecture. ”

“ German’s Church, the ancient cathedral of Cornwall, is designated Saxon by them, whereas its features, as any tyro will now see, are undoubted Norman; in fact, there are no remains of Saxon architecture in Cornwall, and it would be surprising if there were, seeing that the Saxons never had any permanent hold on this part of Britain ”

“ The Saxon is a very heavy order of architecture. It was used in this kingdom much in the erection of religious edifices, and is frequently found mixed with the Norman in such structures. The grand and most obvious distinction is a semi-circular arch, with massy columns, variously ornamented, and most frequently the columns which support the same arch are diversely sculptured. ”

“ Saxon, therefore, as far as the architecture of this country is concerned, is an improper term. [15]
SAXON HOUSE.
The ordinary Saxon homes were of clay, held together by wooden frames; bricks being uncommon, and only used as ornaments: the houses were generally low and mean, or as we should call them, cottages. In a Saxon house of larger proportions, the upper rooms only are lighted by windows; there is no appearance of chimneys; the doorway is in one of the gables, and reaches more than half-way to the top of the house ”

“ Of these ancient specimens, some few are of Saxon architecture, particularly Kilsheel church in Tipperary, having a Saxon doorway, once rich in sculpture, but now defaced. In general the Church ruins consist of little more than the shell of a small edifice with two gable ends and scarcely any windows, always enveloped in ivy: in some places they appear at distances of every 4 or 5 miles. ”

“ We would have spoken of great things outside the University, for there are many that are indeed great, and they crowd themselves up now, if for nothing more, for an honorable mention. The Fitzwilliam Museum has grand picture-galleries, and works of art and antiquity incredible; the building itself is a marvel of good architecture. Old St. Benedict's Church, one of the most perfect examples of Saxon architecture in England, is a thousand years old, with an extremely ancient burial-ground surrounding it. ”

“ Pepystell, the fashionable architect, had that day sent for Roland's inspection; houses, villas, castles, cottages, abbeys, shooting-boxes, gate-lodges, Tudor and Saxon, Norman and Saracenic,—everything that the morbid imagination of architecture run mad could devise and amalgamate between the chaste elegance of the Greek and the tinkling absurdity of the Chinese.
“I do so love a cottage ornée,” said Mrs. White, taking up a very beautiful representation of one, where rose-colored curtains, and a group on a grass-plot, with gay dresses and parasols, entered into the composite architecture. ”

“ At the first glance it might be taken for an ordinary Norman structure, with its round pillars and round arches; and, in fact, it is usually so described by the few authorities who notice it at all. The rudeness of (p. 232) the capitals, however, and the general aspect of the arcade, does not somehow look like Norman work, but more suggests Saxon architecture. And the very small clerestory lights, mere loopholes, still more lead us to this conclusion. Some archæologists, therefore, consider this interior church at Ickleton to be a Saxon edifice ”

“ The Worth imposts, like the bases at Bosham, are huge and ungainly, testifying both to the general love of bigness in the Saxon builder and to his comparative ignorance of the normal features which in the eleventh century were everywhere else crystallising into Romanesque. Saxon England stood outside the general development of European architecture, but the fact gives it none the less of interest in our eyes. ”

“ A preliminary word on the various styles of English architecture is necessary before we consider the churches and other important buildings of our county.
Pre-Norman or, as it is usually, though with no great certainty termed, Saxon building in England, was the work of early craftsmen with an imperfect knowledge of stone construction, who commonly used rough rubble [115] walls, no buttresses, small semicircular or triangular arches, and square towers with what is termed "long-and-short work" at the quoins or corners. It survives almost solely in portions of small churches. ”

“ This style of architecture prevailed till the twelfth century, and was seen in its greatest perfection in Germany under the Saxon emperors, especially in the Rhenish provinces, as in the cathedrals of Spires, Mentz, Worms, and Nuremberg. Its general effect was solemn, serious,—a separation from the outward world,—a world disgraced by feudal wars and peasants' wrongs and general ignorance, which made men sad, morose, inhuman. It flourished in ages when the poor had no redress, and were trodden under the feet of hard feudal masters ”

“ In architecture no advance took place until very late. The small ancient church at Bradford-on-Avon in the south of England belongs to the Saxon period. The Saxon stonework exhibited in a few buildings like the church tower of Earl's Barton, Northamptonshire, is an attempt to imitate timber with stone, and has been called "stone carpentry." [2] Edward the Confessor's work in Westminster Abbey was not Saxon, but Norman, he having obtained his plans, and probably his builders, from Normandy. ”

“ In Great Britain, as has been already pointed out, enough traces of Saxon—that is to say, Primitive Romanesque—architecture remain to show that many simple, though comparatively rude, buildings must have been erected previous to the Norman Conquest. ”

“ S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna.
The church was pronounced by monkish writers to be for two centuries the grandest and most beautiful church on this side of the Alps; even Roman architects admitted that they who saw Hexham church might imagine themselves amidst Roman surroundings. [120]
There is one point in connection with Saxon architecture not touched. In much of the Saxon building now standing there are projecting ribs of stone in the masonry which are commonly known under the name of pilaster strips. The masonry in which it occurs is perhaps always late Saxon work. ”

“ The very word they used in describing this form of ornament also signified to gnaw or eat; and from the Saxon word fret, or teeth work, the common term of fret-work arose. Towards the close of the seventh century, the celebrated bishop Wilfrid, who had visited Rome, made great improvements in ecclesiastical architecture. He brought with him several eminent artists from Italy; and as he stood high in the favour of Oswy, king of the Deiri and Bernicia, he was enabled to reward his architects liberally. He restored the church which Paulinus founded at York. ”

“ Archi­tecture.The Norman style of church architecture with its varied forms of columns, moulded and recessed arches and vaulting, may be roughly stated to have been introduced into England at the time of the Conquest. The Saxon masons do not appear to have understood vaulting sufficiently well to have roofed over any large space with [36] stone, and for this reason alone the Saxon form of building was bound to give way before the Norman, which of all the earlier styles was the most advanced in this respect. ”

“ The interior is an interesting study in Norman architecture and the change to Early English is nowhere seen to better advantage. Portions of the foundations of the Saxon church were laid bare during repairs to the floor in 1900. A section is shown beneath a trap door near the pulpit.
A peculiar arrangement of the eastern ends of the choir aisles is noteworthy. They are square as seen from the exterior, but prove to be apsidal on entering. At the end of the south choir aisle, forming a reredos to the side altar, an ancient Saxon Rood will be seen ”

“ The roof was surmounted by battlements and a parapet. The monuments whose ruins crown the Rock of Cashel were all built before the Saxon had set foot in Ireland, and it is impossible to look upon them without admiration for the men who called them into existence. They certainly had little to learn, in architecture at least, from the rude Norman barons who, taking advantage of the internal feuds which distracted the people, overran and subjugated the country. ”

“ Saxon builders [67] had little architectural knowledge or skill; and buildings like Stow impress us more by their height and mass of wall than by any very striking architectural feature. The work at Barton-on-Humber is curious and interesting building: it is not architecture. In the Lincolnshire towers, a step is taken in the right direction by the avoidance of merely decorative surface-ornament. The tower asks for judgment on its own merits. ”

“ At Caistor the wall is 53⁄4 feet thick. One cannot fail to recognise that the slender tower of Saxon type, while keeping its unbuttressed character and its “mid-wall” arches, is spreading out into the ordinary broad and heavy Norman tower.
In the capitals of the mid-wall shafts a decided step is being taken in the same direction. The plain “cubical” type may be regarded as following a course of natural development at home which found conspicuous perfection in the architecture of the Norman period. ”

“ Such a manor hall as that of Cédric the Saxon should be kept in mind if we wish to get a fair idea of the actual life of the better classes, not only in England but in France, for the main features of the architecture and of the furnishings were the same. ”

“ About four hundred years after the founding of the Saxon monastery, the present church was built; but it was not until 1836 that it was elevated to the rank of a cathedral. Like York Minster, Ripon is singularly devoid of tombs of famous men, though there are many fine monuments and brasses to the noble families of the vicinity. The architecture is strangely mixed, owing to the many alterations that have been made from time to time. The exterior must have been far more imposing before the removal of the wooden spires which rose above the towers. ”

“ Some remnants we do possess of ancient grandeur, and we can still shew you specimens both of Saxon and Gothic architecture, which are worthy of your highest admiration, though they not numerous, I confess. ”

“ In this plate again there seems to be a rough attempt at a portrayal of Norman domestic architecture. The Norman{25} nature of the work is suggested in the house being of two storeys, the Saxon dwelling usually being of one. A woman and her child escape from the hall, which occupies the whole of the ground floor, and is of nearly as much importance as it would have been in the Anglo-Saxon period. ”

“ In the country of Benedict Biscop and the Venerable Bede it is natural that we should look for other matters of interest than striking architecture, and undoubtedly many of the churches carry evidence of a high antiquity, though only perhaps a fragment of dog-tooth moulding breaking through lath and plaster restoration of the eighteenth century.
Two churches, Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, are no less interesting for the Saxon remains which they contain than for their association with the early Christian Fathers of the North. ”

“ Thus even the Saxon and Romanesque styles of architecture may, through the architect's careful attention to the decorative features exhibited to us in the pages of ancient illuminated books, be revived, not in their rude and structural nudity, but as glowing with those colours, and decorated with those forms, which we may observe as peculiarly affected in the ornamental and pictorial embellishments of the best artists of the days when those styles were the only ones popularly adopted. ”

“ Carter's work on ancient architecture [62] and there treated as a genuine Saxon building, erected by King Ethelred, after the destruction of the monastery by the Danes in 1004. But the capitals of the columns in the two churches bear only a slight resemblance to each other. Those at Oxford [63] are among the most beautiful left us by early architects, consisting chiefly of foliage ”

“ But as of most importance, attention is better limited to British art in the middle age. This species of building is distinguished, in native antiquities, by the appellation of Saxon or Norman,—displaying, as characteristics, low, thick, and rotund pillars, with bases and capitals often fantastically carved, with heavy semicircular arches, springing directly from the top, corresponding exactly with the corrupted Roman. ”

“ It is usual to give the term Anglo-Saxon to all relics of buildings in Great Britain, that can be proved to date from between the early 7th century and 1066, but Pre-Conquest would be more strictly accurate, Anglo-Saxon architects having contributed but little to the evolution of style, for they were wanting in initiative, rarely trying experiments with new features as was the constant custom of their Norman successors. ”

“ On the whole the Danes and the Swedes produced the most lively and distinguished traditional architecture of the early decades of the century. Medievalizing churches in Scandinavia, such as the just-mentioned Grundvig Church in Copenhagen, where Jensen Klint followed Baltic modes that seemed strange and even Expressionist to foreign eyes, or Tengbom’s Högalid Church in Stockholm, superbly sited and actually much more Baroque than Gothic in its detail, make the respectable Neo-Perpendicular and Neo-Georgian exercises of contemporary Anglo-Saxon architects look timid and unimaginative. ”

“ The chief characteristics of the so-called Anglo-Saxon style are the great height in comparison with the length and breadth of a building, a rectangular plan, massive square towers, unadorned angular or semicircular arches, stunted clumsy-looking columns with roughly carved or plain capitals, long narrow round-headed deeply recessed windows, massive walls without internal decoration, with on the exterior a somewhat ornate surface ornamentation, combined with a series of peculiar clamps known as quoins at the angles of the walls, greatly strengthening the structure. ”